You summed up my oppinion of Tidus exactly. He's not a trained combat machine. He's a sports star. Asking him to take on Sin and fiends is like asking the MVP of the World Cup to pick up an assault rifle and storm Taliban strongholds in Afganistan. Its not what he's trained for. You need real soldiers for that. Tidus went above and beyond what could have been expected of him, especially given his personal consequences for the ultimate defeat of Sin.
Oh, and Lightning was pure badass. Easily my favorite protaganist since Cloud.





